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HARRISBURG – A state House committee voted Tuesday to approve two bills that aim to chip away at a costly state mandate.

Prevailing wage laws are another front in the ongoing struggle between unions and governmental entities in Pennsylvania. The unions favor the law because it guarantees higher wages on publicly funded projects in the state, but groups representing local governments and school districts say the law burdens their budgets with unnecessary costs.

Rick Gray, mayor of Lancaster, said the prevailing wage rule has cost taxpayers in his city as much as $447,000 since 2009 on 21 different public works projects.

HAMMERING AWAY: Prevailing wage laws have hit local government budgets hard, and now Republican state lawmakers are looking to chip away at them.

“This is not about Democrats versus Republicans,” Gray said during an event at the state Capitol on Monday calling for prevailing wage changes. “It is about taxpayer-funded projects and the ability for local governments to keep up with infrastructure upgrades.”

But on Tuesday, it was about Democrats versus Republicans. The two bills were voted out of committee with straight party-line votes of 15-10.

Pennsylvania’s prevailing wage law has long been a target of local governments and school districts, which have to bear higher labor costs because of 1961 mandate. The prevailing wage varies from county-to-county and for different types of work, but it typically runs between 20 percent and 50 percent higher than the average wage in the county.

All publicly funded construction projects costing more than $25,000 must use the prevailing wage.

But the two bills approved in committee Tuesday would ease the law’s restrictions.

Advocates of the measures said both would help local governments and school boards make ends meet during difficult economic times.

“The burdensome prevailing wage law has made it particularly difficult for schools and municipal governments to maximize a competitive bidding process to get the best deal for taxpayers,” state Rep. Mario Scavello, R-Monroe, said in a statement.

Pennsylvania Independent is a public interest journalism project dedicated to promoting open, transparent, and accountable state government by reporting on the activities of agencies, bureaucracies, and politicians in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.